Even if it feels a little bit boring, I wanted to share some of the photographs of the place where I live here in the Azores, all of them are taken near my house.

To tell the truth, I like to live life at a slow pace so I don't miss the important details, for example, this small plant which lies at the entrance of my home:

It's pretty, isn't it? but you need to go slowly to notice it, look where it's located, most of the people coming here just miss it and go directly to the front door:

One nice thing of this island is that is full of horses, much more than the rest of the Azores islands, and that happens to be because there is a religious procession every year where you need a horse to participate, so many people will have a horse just for that day, while the rest of the year they haven't much to do:

Also we have plenty of birds, and apart from keep singing all the time, some even knock on the windows quite often, I don't really know why, but it feels as having a pet without needing to take care of him:

And of course, we have plenty of cows, these have an European subsidy so most local people with enough land will have some of them, I'm told that they get paid 250€/year per each, not much if you look at all the work they require all year round.

Sometimes they pass really close to my house, but so far never knocked on the window as the birds use to do:

Before living here I thought of cows as boring animals that spend their lives just eating and sleeping, but after watching them carefully I have got to know them much better, and discovered that they even listen to the music I play in my home, if it's something like Rock & Roll they will not mind, but if something more harmonious, like classic music, they will stop eating and moving, and look at my house until the musical piece ends, it's amazing, and they are all of them that do so!

Another interesting thing is that they are peaceful and well behaved animals until they run out of food and/or water, in he previous photo the system topping their water tank broke, and so they were left without water, that's why they are in a waiting in front of it.

During almost a full day they just waited patiently, but it got a point where they lost their nerves and began to fight against them violently; I'm afraid people aren't much different in this regard when they stay for a while without their basic needs being covered.

Then, apart from the animals, I love the plans I have in my garden, specially those that are good for eating or making tea, i feels so great to go out your door and have some fresh mint waiting for you to put in your tea pot:

As in most volcanic islands, land is very fertile here, and you see plants growing up from any cracks in the floor, quite often I like to let them stay, I think they teach us that is possible to do nice and important things with very little resources:

Anyway, my all time favorites are the roses, in this time of the year they are blossoming and smell really well, I use to take a few petals from them every morning and put them in a cup in front of my computer so as to work more happily.

And last but not least, there are plenty of insects every where, most of them are friendly and will not bite you, my favorite is this little one that I like to call "mini-ohm":

The name "mini-ohm" comes from an anime called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, where a much bigger, but similar shaped insect, plays a very important role in the story:

Well, so this was the tour by my immediate environment here in the Azores, as you can see, after living in all kind of big and small places, I got to the conclusion that where I feel better is in a quiet and remote place full surrounded by nature, I don't miss the big cities at all.